In a medieval text-book, giving science the form of a dialogue, occur the following question and answer: "Why is the sun so red in the evening ?" "Because he looketh down upon hell." But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography--the idea of the earth's sphericity--still lived.

Although the great majority of the early fathers of the Church, and especially Lactantius, had sought to crush it beneath the utterances attributed to Isaiah, David, and St.Paul, the better opinion of Eudoxus and Aristotle could not be forgotten.

Clement of Alexandria and Origen had even supported it.
Ambrose and Augustine had tolerated it, and, after Cosmas had held sway a hundred years, it received new life from a great churchman of southern Europe, Isidore of Seville, who, however fettered by the dominant theology in many other things, braved it in this.

In the eighth century a similar declaration was made in the north of Europe by another great Church authority, Bede.

Against the new life thus given to the old truth, the sacred theory struggled long and vigorously but in vain.
Eminent authorities in later ages, like Albert the Great, St.Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the doctrine of the earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern period we find its truth acknowledged by the vast majority of thinking men.